Long-term integrity testing of spray-dried particles in a 10-kW chemical-looping combustor using natural gas as fuel

Chemical-looping combustion, CLC, is a combustion concept with inherent separation Of CO2. The fuel and combustion air are kept apart by using an oxygen carrier consisting of metal oxide. The oxygen carriers used in this study were prepared from commercially available raw materials by spray-drying. The aim of the study was to subject the particles to long-term operation (> 1000 h) with fuel and study changes in particles, with respect to reactivity and physical characteristics. The experiments were carried out in a 10-kW chemical-looping combustor operating with natural gas as fuel. 1016 h of fuel operation were achieved. The first 405 h were accomplished using a single batch of NiO/NiAl2O4-particles. The last 611 h were achieved using a 50/50(mass)-mixture of (i) particles used for 405 h, and (ii) a second batch of particles similar in composition to the first batch, but with an MgO additive. Thus, at the conclusion of the test series, approximately half of the particles in the reactor system had been subjected to > 1000 h of chemical-looping combustion. The reason for mixing the two batches was to improve the fuel conversion. Fuel conversion was better with the mixture of the two oxygen carriers than it was using only the batch of NiO/NiAl2O4-particles. The CO fraction was slightly above the equilibrium fraction at all temperatures. Using the oxygen carrier mixture, the methane fraction was typically 0.4-1% and the combustion efficiency was around 98%. The loss of fines decreased slowly throughout the test period, although the largest decrease was seen during the first 100 h. An estimated particle lifetime of 33 000 h was calculated from the loss of fines. No decrease in reactivity was seen during the test period. (C) 2009 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.